Thumbelina

A long time ago and far, far away an old woman was sitting in
her rocking chair thinking how happy she would be if she had a
child. Then, she heard a knock at the door and opened it. A lady
was standing there and she said, “If you let me in, I will grant
you a wish.” The old woman let the woman in firstly because
she felt pity, secondly because she knew what she’d wish for...a
child. After she washed the lady up and fed her, she saw that
she was really beautiful.
The lady slept soundly all night long and then right before she
left, she said, “Now, about your wish. What do you want?”
The lady thought about most people’s wishes to be richest in
the world, most powerful person, the smartest, and the
prettiest. But the old woman wished for
Something the lady could not believe. She said, “I would like a
child.”
“What did you say?” she asked because she was astonished at
what the old lady asked for. The old lady repeated what she
said. “I would like a child.”

The lady then placed a tiny seed in the old woman’s hand and
gave her instructions. “ Plant this seed, water it carefully, watch
over it, and give it your love. If you do all those things, then you
will have a child.”
So the old woman did all of those things the lady had told her
to. In a week, there was a beautiful yellow flower in place of
the seed. The next day, the flower bloomed. Inside the flower
was a beautiful little girl who was the size of the woman’s
thumb so she a called her Thumbellina. She made her a little
dress out of golden threads. Thumbellina slept in a walnut shell
and brought the old woman joy and happiness.
But, one day when Thumbellina went down for her nap, a frog
hopped through the open window and said, “You will be a
perfect bride for my son,” and she took Thumbellina to a lily
pad and hopped off to find her son.
Thumbellina cried and some little guppies heard her and
chewed the roots off the lily pad to help her escape.
Thumbellina’s lily pad floated away. A few hours later, she
finally stopped floating. During the summer, she ate berries and
drank the dew off the leaves. But then winter came and she
needed shelter. A kindly mouse let her stay with it, but it said,
“You’ll have to marry my friend, Mole, because I cannot keep
you for another winter.”
The next day she went to see Mole. In one of tunnels, she
found a sick bird and said, “Poor thing, I will bury it.” Then she
found out that it was still alive and she cared for it until was
ready to fly. It flew off. That fall she nearly had to marry Mole.
But then she heard a familiar tweet and an idea popped up in
the bird’s head.
“You can come down to the warm country,” said the bird, so
Thumbellina hopped on the bird’s back and flew to the warm
country. The people there who were like her renamed her Erin.
She married a prince and she lived happily ever after